Landscapes of the Forgotten Forts

Landscapes of the Forgotten Forts explores relationships between history and art, war and peace, built and natural environments, absence and presence. Through photographs and poems, the three forts—Casey, Worden, and Flagler—that comprised the Triangle of Fire that protected the Puget Sound during WWI and WWII are portrayed, invoking their original purpose, now long overrun by nature. For more than fifteen years, Kathy Fridstein has photographed these forts, homing in on a mediation on history through a certain kind of beauty. Kathy invited poet Kelli Russell Agodon to respond to several of the photographs; her poems evoke the history of the forts, personify the soldiers stationed there, and interpret what it is like to be there now, juxtaposed with the current affairs of our country.

The continual regeneration of the rich landscape enveloping and surrounding the abandoned structures is a reminder that the soldiers are gone but we are connected to the stories of the forts past and history continues to evolve.